Ford to keep AM radio on 2024 models will restore AM on 2 electric vehicles from 2023īefore I let you go, speaking of intersection between cars, technology, law and stuff most people don’t know, the Chicago area boasts the first automobile to include seat belts as a standard feature.Chicago’s a big market for AM radio, but electric vehicles loom as a buzzkill.My colleague David Roeder wrote a fascinating front-page story on the issue, including a law being considered in Congress, arguing that AM radio is necessary for national security - to reach people with emergency information - and also outlining Chicago’s rich history as an AM radio center. Interference is what has pushed low-tech old AM radio back into the spotlight recently, as car manufacturers have begun leaving AM out of new cars because the electric motors interfere with the signal. AM reception has an improved signal-to-noise ratio, or less interference. The AM range of the electronic spectrum, from 535 to 1700 kHz, has been popular ever since, as it leads to a stronger signal because the waves don’t skip away out of the Earth’s atmosphere as easily as FM waves. Those expensive receivers were AM radios. The ST71 cost $110, and to put that in perspective, the average new car cost $600 in 1930, which means putting in that new Motorola gizmo would be like paying $5,000 for a car’s sound system today. Founder Paul Galvin said he came up with the company name while shaving, a mashup of “motor” and “Victrola” ( double sigh: a kind of early record player). That same year, 1930, that Liberty Coaster changed its name to Radio Flyer, another burgeoning Chicago company, destined also to build an empire based on mobility, Motorola, started selling radios specifically designed to go into cars. The “Flyer” part of the name was a nod to Charles Lindbergh.) (Ever wonder why the red wagons manufactured here for years were called Radio Flyers? What is “radio” about a kid’s wagon? The answer: Radio was wildly popular, and Antonio Pasin, the Italian immigrant who founded the company, wanted his wagons to be wildly popular, too. Somebody was going to do it - cars were all the rage and radio was all the rage, particularly in Chicago. I also imagine most people here, even if they know the atom was first split by human agency on that repurposed squash court under the stands at Stagg Field on the University of Chicago campus in 1942, have no idea which human led the effort ( sigh, Enrico Fermi, which will be better known when Columbus Drive is finally named after him, perhaps by the centennial in 2042).įrost is considered the first person to rig up a car radio, putting one in the door of his Ford Model T, in May 1922, in his capacity as president of the Radio Club at Lane High School. Typical for a city that shrugs off its technological pioneers. Not many Chicagoans recognize the name George Frost.
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